


Warning Signs

by Anonymous_Introvert78



Series: NCT Hurt/Comfort [8]
Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Chronic Illness, Chronic Pain, Exhaustion, Gen, Here we go, Hiding Medical Issues, Hospitals, Hurt Mark Lee (NCT), LET'S GET IT, Mark Lee (NCT) Needs a Hug, Mark Lee (NCT)-centric, Mark needs a break!, There is a moral to this story
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-21
Updated: 2021-01-10
Packaged: 2021-03-10 07:14:25
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 16,026
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27659347
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Anonymous_Introvert78/pseuds/Anonymous_Introvert78
Summary: "What's the probability that this will kill me in the next three months?""With your lifestyle, it's a possibility."
Relationships: Lee Donghyuck | Haechan & Mark Lee, Mark Lee & Lee Taeyong, Mark Lee & Moon Taeil, Mark Lee & Nakamoto Yuta, Mark Lee & Suh Youngho | Johnny, Mark Lee (NCT)/Everyone
Series: NCT Hurt/Comfort [8]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1413451
Comments: 169
Kudos: 521





	1. Mark Lee

**Author's Note:**

> I'm back! Sorry for the long wait. I've had so many projects and requests and I wanted to get them all done before I went for another fic but I realised I've left this series a little too long so I'm back! (Also, happy birthday, Chenle)

I'm writing a twenty-one part (oh my god, now it's twenty-three part!) series! One story for each member because I'm overly ambitious and honestly? I just wanted to see if it could be done. 

This is a write-as-I-go fic so updates will be slower than usual but I'm in college now and apparently that means I have more responsibilities.

**NO TRIGGER WARNINGS APPLY :)**

****


	2. Chapter One

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Let's play ... GUESS WHAT KIND OF DISEASE I'M USING TO KILL MARK!

“It’s still hurting?”

Mark nodded, face scrunched up in a wince of discomfort. He was lying flat on his back on the training mat in the gym, the company physio kneeling by his hips as he gradually pushed his charge’s bent leg up towards his stomach.

“Where exactly?”

Everywhere? Was that an acceptable answer? For almost a week now, the pain had been festering in every single one of his limbs. He couldn’t dance, he couldn’t work out, he could barely even get out of bed without feeling like he’d been hit by a truck.

Instead of saying any of that, though, he gestured vaguely towards the meat of his thigh in the hopes that his physio would get the gist.

“Here?”

He gritted his teeth and grunted as the fingers tightened around his quadricep, squeezing him in the spot that was causing him the most distress. Sometimes even something as meagre as standing up had his legs trembling in protest.

The sudden deterioration of his condition couldn’t have come at a worse time. He had NCT 2020 promotions, preparing for the 23-member dance performance at the end of year award shows, a return to Dream, filming a multitude of reality programs and SuperM activities, too.

It was his busiest year to date and he could not afford to be sick. Yet, sick appeared to be exactly what he was. Sick and weak and hurting all over.

He couldn’t keep up at practise, he could barely keep his eyes open half the time and he could’ve sworn he was losing muscle mass by the day. He knew he was overworked and exhausted and this was his body’s way of telling him enough was enough but he couldn’t stop.

Just until the end of the year. He just had to make it until the end of the year and then he could rest. For as long as it took. Until then, the only thing he could do was tough it out and hope that his skeleton didn’t give out on stage.

“Is it the same with the other leg?”

He nodded, still with his eyes closed and an arm hooked over his face so that the physio wouldn’t have to see his grimaces of agony.

“And if I do this?”

The man kept a gentle grip on Mark’s knee, slowly guiding it over the other one until it was touching the floor beside his opposite hip. It was a stretch he’d done a thousand times before and yet the fire it ignited in his thighs and lower back was certainly a novelty.

“Stop! Stop!” he cried before he could bite back the words.

He didn’t need to open his eyes or look up to know that his trainer was frowning with concern as he cautiously returned his client’s leg to its original position. Even the sigh he huffed out would have been audible from space.

“You shouldn’t be in this much pain,” he said solemnly. “I’m serious, Mark-ssi. I don’t think we can continue to ignore this.”

“I’m fine,” Mark mumbled, permitting his arm to loll limply back to his side so that he could see the speckled grey tiles of the ceiling. “I’ve had muscle pain before. All I need is some support tape and a pain patch or two.”

Except, this time, it was a little more serious. This time, it didn’t feel like simple muscle pain. He was losing strength, lagging behind, clawing his way through every day by telling himself that tomorrow would be better.

After years of being worked to the bone as one of SM’s busiest artists, he may have finally gone too far. He knew it, his trainer knew it and, sooner or later, the company would know it, too.

And like he’d said before, it couldn’t have come at a worse time.

“I know you’re not going to listen to me,” the physio huffed from above, shuffling slightly on his knees as he tried to get some feeling back in his lower legs. “But I really don’t feel comfortable letting you continue to practise with the others. Pain is the body’s way of telling you to stop and I think it’s fair to say that, right now, your body is screaming.”

He wasn’t wrong, but he wasn’t right either. Mark couldn’t drop out. Not now. Not with the comeback right around the corner and MAMA looming over them.

In four years, he’d never missed a performance and he definitely couldn’t start now. Even if there were plenty of equally talented artists to take his place, he was a pinnacle member of every song. SM made sure of it.

Him and Taeyong. They were pushed and pushed as if they were immune to fatigue and illness. If one of them ducked out, the stage was empty and there were gaps in the energy no matter how desperately the others tried to fill them.

It shouldn’t be that way. Their roles should be more evenly spread, to prevent moments like that from happening, but that wasn’t what Lee Soo Man wanted.

So, Mark – and Taeyong – paid for it.

“Ideally,” his physio continued, oblivious to Mark’s internal thought process. “I’d like you to go to the hospital for an MRI, just to be sure there’s nothing more serious going on in there. You’ve been getting headaches, too, haven’t you?”

“A little.”

Understatement of the century. He hadn’t just been getting headaches. He’d been getting full-on assaults to his eyeballs, temples, mouth and neck that left him on his knees on the ground, clutching at his skull and frantically trying to blink back the stars.

They came from nowhere and the worst of them could last up to three or four hours. He couldn’t see, speak, stand. He was dizzy and disorientated and more nauseous than it was fair for him to be.

So, yeah … ‘headaches’ was an understatement.

“It’s not good, Mark-ssi,” came the concerned hiss. “You keep going like this and you could do yourself some real damage.”

If he hadn’t already.

“I know,” was all Mark could come back with as he wedged his elbows beneath him and levered his aching body into a sitting position.

The burn in his shoulders, his back and his neck was bordering on unbearable, but he’d grown used to it over the last week. There was barely a moment when it wasn’t plaguing his nerve receptors and so he’d learned to handle the pain just like he always had.

“Can you help me tape up?”

The others would’ve already started practise and he should be there, with them, among them. He’d spent long enough lying on this floor, learning what he already knew: that his body was giving up on him just when he needed it to hold on.

He heard the sigh of disapproval but, thankfully, there was no verbal protest. The company’s senior trainer may have decades of experience under his belt but, at the end of the day, he knew that if an artist wanted to push through, they would regardless of how close they were to breaking.

“Shirt off.”

Mark shrugged the loose material over his head and leaned forwards, exposing his bare back for treatment. Listening to the sounds of the physio preparing the tape behind him, he began slowly massaging the muscle of his thighs as if that would make any difference.

“You want pain patches, too?”

“As many as you’ve got.”

The kinesiology tape was smooth against his skin and the strange chemicals it was infused with sent a pleasant cooling sensation spreading through his shoulders. It smelled nice, too. A good distraction from everything else.

Both shoulders, his neck, his lower back. The physio asked him to hike up his gym shorts so he could do the same for his thighs and his knees. By the time he was done, Mark felt like he was more tape than he was skin, but at least the stuff was holding him together.

Murmuring his thanks to the still deeply concerned trainer, he sidled out of the room and tried his damn hardest not to look like he was about to keel over onto the ground.

The hallway between the gym and the dance studio was unfairly long. He prepared himself to appear as healthy as possible but that feat was difficult when he could barely walk without limping and he had to brace a hand against the base of his spine just to keep himself upright.

He could hear the music filtering through the wall, _Make A Wish_ blaring through the speakers, almost drowned out by the sheer volume of the foot stomping that came with dancing to a fast-paced rhythm on a wooden floor.

At least they’d started with a song that he wasn’t a part of so it wasn’t like he’d missed anything, but he couldn’t help the sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach. He loved watching Shotaro practise just because of the energy he threw into every step, desperate to earn his place in the team.

Mark slipped through the door just as Taeyong’s voice blasted the swooping lyrics, _“I can do this all day”_ , and Shotaro led the introduction to the dance break at the front of the pyramid formation.

The non-performers were either sitting with their backs against the mirrors or stretching their muscles in preparation for their own rehearsal, occasionally shouting words of support to spur the dancers through the last of their song.

Mark limped, as quietly as possible, over to the wall and used it to help him slide clumsily and jerkily down onto the floor. Ten gave him a welcoming nudge but he was too busy pulling his leg up past his ear to notice the excessive amount of tape poking out from behind the newcomer’s shirt.

“Come on!” Xuxi yelled from the dance floor as Taeyong took centre-stage for the final chorus.

Each one of them looked absolutely exhausted, sweat-slicked and gasping for breath between steps, and Mark found his eyes instinctively drawn to the black straps of the back brace that was holding Taeyong’s spine vertical.

Taeyong was in pain, too. Taeyong had a list of dance-related injuries longer than his arm and yet Taeyong never complained. He’d taken one break in the last four years and that was only because a qualified psychologist had been seriously concerned for his mental wellbeing.

If Taeyong could do it then so could Mark.

The song ended to tumultuous applause from the spectators that Mark whole-heartedly contributed to. Doyoung and Dejun were immediately flat on their backs, Jaemin and Shotaro bracing their hands on their hips and taking deep breaths. Johnny tossed Jaehyun a water bottle that he downed in one go.

Taeyong dragged himself, shoulders heaving and hands brushing his sopping fringe out of his eyes, over to the choreographer who leaned in a little closer so the artist could whisper in his ear.

Mark could tell his hyung was trying to be discreet but he caught the side-eyed glances that were shot his way and he knew that the surreptitious conversation was about him.

“Alright!” the choreographer called out over the breathless chatter that had broken out. “Good job, guys! Let’s do _Work It_ next! Jaemin-ssi, if you need to sit out for the first run-through then do it.”

Now sitting on the floor with his legs splayed out in front of him and his chin touching his chest, Jaemin raised his hand and shot the man a slightly half-hearted thumbs up sign. And Mark was fuming.

How convenient. How fucking convenient that Taeyong would look right at Mark and have some kind of secret conversation with their choreographer who then immediately announced that the next song they would practise was one of the very few that Mark wasn’t included in.

A leader could be overprotective. A hyung could be overprotective. But this wasn’t just overprotective, this was sabotage.

As the next collection of dancers took to the floor and the ones who’d just finished crawled out of the way, Taeyong made a beeline straight for Mark and flopped down on the floor beside him.

Mark didn’t even wait for him to open his big mouth.

“You know that I need to practise, too, right?” he snarled, staring pointedly at the opposite wall so that he wouldn’t have to see his leader’s face and get even angrier. “If you keep benching me like this …”

“I’m not benching you,” Taeyong countered instantly, also without turning to him. “I’m looking out for you. You’ve been in pain for almost a week now and I …”

Mark scoffed, “You’ve been in pain for four years, hyung. Cut the bullshit. You just want to seem like you can endure more than I can. Like you’re better than me.”

He knew he was being harsh and he knew he was lying through his teeth. Taeyong didn’t have a competitive nor a malicious bone in his body. But this was Mark’s livelihood and the longer he was shunted onto the side lines, the greater the risk to his career.

No one wanted a dancer who was too broken to dance.

“This is different,” Taeyong insisted in a voice that was so infuriatingly patient. “You need rest and if you’re not going to take it for yourself then I have to make a decision as your leader to prioritise your health over your performance.”

“I’m fi –”

“I swear to God, Mark, if you say you’re fine –”

“What?” Mark barked, having to raise his voice to be heard over the music. “What are you gonna do? You may be my leader, hyung, but you’re not my manager. You have no say over what I do with my body.”

“I saw you walk in here. I also saw you passed out on the floor after yesterday’s practise.”

Chenle glanced over at them nervously. That should have been a warning that their voices were starting to carry over the sound of the music and the dancer’s movements, but Mark was too caught up in his anger to bother listening.

It wasn’t fair that his body was choosing to give up now when it had already pushed through so much. This was the first time they would all get a chance to perform together and now he was screwing it up for everyone.

It was also his official return to Dream. He’d been waiting almost two years for the moment when he’d get to sing alongside those kids again. If he allowed Taeyong to take him out of promotions now, he wasn’t sure when he’d get another chance.

“You can be mad at me,” Taeyong continued. “You can hate me if that makes you feel better but I’m not going to let you break your body because you’re too stubborn to accept that you need to stop. Just today. That’s all I’m asking, Mark. Just sit out for today and we’ll see how you feel tomorrow.”

Mark glared at him. He glared harder than he’d ever glared in his life and yet Taeyong’s expression didn’t change. He looked right back, coolly, calmly, without breaking eye contact or forfeiting the challenge.

“I’m not giving up,” he said airily, and that was the final straw for Mark.

Muscle pain forgotten in his fit of rage, he scrambled up off the floor and stormed out of the room, slamming the door as loudly as he could behind him. It was childish and rude and it would make no difference to his situation but it made him feel at least a little better.

He couldn’t ever remember being this frustrated. He may have even tried to punch a wall if the dull throb in his neck and back hadn’t returned at that moment to haunt him as he meandered gingerly down the hallway.

What Taeyong had said was right. He did need to rest, maybe even go to the hospital for a scan like the physio had suggested. But there was that stubborn little snippet of him that wanted to fight through.

They were on the home stretch already. He couldn’t permit himself to drop out now when the comeback was literally right around the corner.

It came out of nowhere, just like it always did.

First, the pop inside his ears and the pressure building up inside his skull. Like he was on an aeroplane and underwater all at the same time. Then, the ringing. It built in pitch and volume until it was almost a screech, prompting him to clamp his hands on either side of his head. 

Then, the nausea. Waves of it. As soon as he managed to fight through one, another would come rolling in and crash on top of him and convince him that, any moment now, he was about to have a very unpleasant reunion with his lunch.

“Not now …” he hissed under his breath, clutching his skull and bending at the waist in an attempt to get himself some better balance. “Please … Not now …”

He closed his eyes because he knew what came next. The spinning. Sickening, inescapable, unbearable spinning that made him feel like he was on a rollercoaster even though he could feel his body being perfectly still.

The intensity of the vertigo was so severe that he didn’t even realise he was falling until his shoulder connected with the ground and fresh pain ricocheted throughout his body. He couldn’t even hear his own cry of pain.

There was no running from these attacks. They hit him when he least expected and wanted them and until God had mercy and he was allowed to open his eyes without feeling as if he was being thrown down a hill in a barrel, there was nothing he could do but endure it.

He lay there in the corridor, curled up on his side with his hands over his ears as if that would somehow protect him from the incessant ringing. The ringing that was coming from _inside_ of him.

He didn’t want to move or else it might get worse. He couldn’t hear his own voice to know whether or not he was calling for help or screaming in pain or just completely silent. He didn’t want to open his eyes but he could feel the ground vibrating beneath him.

_“Hyung …”_

The voice was distant, muffled, like whoever it belonged to was speaking from behind their hands. Their hands grabbed at him, rolling him onto his back, trying to ascertain what was wrong with him, but he continued curling into his own body because it was the only defence mechanism he knew.

_“Hyung …. Breathe … Coming … Hold …”_

Maybe he should’ve listened to Taeyong.


	3. Chapter Two

So, needless to say, Mark was embarrassed.

When Chenle found him lying on the ground, clutching his head and fighting the urge to throw up all over himself, he’d caused such a racket in his panic that he’d drawn the entire group from the dance studio. There was no chance of hiding his condition now.

Since then, everything had been blur after blur. He vaguely remembered losing all sensation in his body, rendering him about as strong as a wet noodle who could do nothing more than flop loosely about as Johnny picked him up off the floor and carried him to the car.

He vomited twice during the journey but he was too weak to even hold himself up enough aim for the trashcan his chaperones had thought to bring with them. Johnny had to have both arms around his chest, keeping him somewhat vertical so that he wouldn’t get puke all over his manager’s leather interior.

Three hours later and he still felt like shit. The high-pitched ringing hadn’t left his ears and each and every sound was at least half the decibel that it should be. He couldn’t open his eyes without the universe spiralling around him and he still didn’t possess the ability to lift even a single finger.

The emergency room doctors had taken samples of every bodily fluid he was capable of producing, had waved lights in his eyes until he’d actually begged them to stop and squeezed all the muscles that hurt the most.

Now he was here, flat on his back on a padded stretcher with a pillow beneath his knees and a large plastic brace caging his head while he tried to drown out the cacophony of clanging and banging going on around him.

It would be a hundred times worse if his hearing wasn’t still refusing to return to him and it certainly helped that he hadn’t opened his eyes in the last two hundred minutes but the experience was claustrophobia-inducing and arduous.

How long did it take to scan someone’s brain for a tumour anyway?

If he didn’t feel so sick, dizzy and boneless, he would probably be frightened. The illness he’d thought was going to just go away if he ignored it enough had suddenly taken a rather morbid turn. 

They were checking him for cancer, for fuck’s sake. He could be dying. Or worse, his career could be ending. Maybe he needed to sort out his priorities but he just couldn’t bring himself to care.

The drugs they’d injected into his veins kept him momentarily pain-free and he was taking advantage of every minute in which he didn’t want to rip his own hair from its roots and gouge his eyes out just to have something to distract him from the agony.

After what felt like forever but was really only about forty-five minutes, the technician retracted the stretcher from the MRI machine, slipped an arm beneath his patient’s neck and levered him into a sitting position.

He got a moment to breathe, still resolutely refusing to open his eyes for fear that he would revisit that swirling vortex of nausea, before he was guided blindly into the awaiting wheelchair and returned to his room.

They turned the lights off and left him to change from the disgusting polyester gown into his home clothes. The kinesiology tape tore at the hairs as he moved and his muscles throbbed mercilessly but he got there. Eventually.

Johnny had to return to the dorms before he was recognised outside in the waiting room so Mark’s manager was the only one there to push his wheelchair to the car, help him lie down in the back seat and then drive him home.

It was easier to pretend he was just in bed. A firm, leather bed that smelled of engine oil and whatever snack had last been devoured inside it. The trashcan was wedged in the footwell in front of his face should he need it but he was too tired to throw up.

He was too tired for anything. Even fear.

He didn’t even realise the car had stopped until he felt the cool blast of air from the outside world that came with an open door and arms that hooked themselves around his chest.

“I’ve got him. Don’t worry.”

Underwater. That was the only way he could think to describe it. Just … underwater. Like everybody was speaking from behind three plates of reinforced glass with their hands over their mouths. Muffled. Distant.

He didn’t mind.

“Did the doctor say he’d get his hearing back?”

There was a response, but it was too far away and Mark was too tired to bother trying to listen any harder.

When the grip manhandled him onto somebody’s back, he wrapped his arms around their neck, buried his nose in the crook of their shoulder and let them trudge up the garden path with him hanging there like a sack of potatoes.

At first, he wondered if it was Johnny carrying him, but the smell was different and there wasn’t enough muscle. He caught a whiff of that Japanese cologne brand and realised it was Yuta.

“Should one of us take his phone? Then, if the hospital calls, we don’t have to wake him.”

“No, we shouldn’t. That’s his private information. He should be the only one who gets it.”

“Yeah, I suppose you’re right.”

More mumbling. Muttering. Movement. Shadows passing by his closed eyelids. A hand in his hair, combing back the strands that were slightly damp with sweat. Fingers on his ankles, carefully removing his shoes while he was still perched on Yuta’s back.

Bed. Warm, soft bed. Heavenly. It practically enveloped him and he took the greatest pleasure in accepting its invitation. The blankets were pulled over him, somebody removed the sunglasses he’d been wearing to try and block out the bright lights but it was already dark and so it didn’t hurt as much as he’d feared.

Clinking sounds of glass on wood. A cup of water being placed on the bedside table. Shuffling. The trashcan being moved from the corner of the room to the spot just beside the mattress. A hand in his hair again, stroking, toying gently.

He cracked his eyes open, fighting the waves of sickness and vertigo that threatened to overwhelm him as he searched the dimly-lit room for any sign of his caretakers.

Yuta was by the door, lighting a candle that Mark vaguely recognised as one of the scented ones he’d received for his birthday. His favourite one. Even as he watched, the aroma of vanilla began to filter through the air.

Movement on his right drew his attention to the only other person in the room who was currently covering a plate of sandwiches with a flimsy layer of cling film to ensure that they didn’t go stale while their would-be customer slept.

Taeyong.

Of course, Taeyong would be here to take care of him. And suddenly Mark felt a pang of guilt ricocheting through his gut at the thought of what the last thing he’d said to him was.

He opened his mouth to apologise but no sound came out, and then he wondered if he’d ever opened his mouth at all. He couldn’t feel his face or his lips or his tongue or any body part for that matter.

Taeyong glanced down, though, and he must’ve seen the watering slits that gazed back at him because he stooped low over the bed, threaded his fingers once again through Mark’s hair and smiled.

“Sleep,” was all he said, and Mark obliged.

\-----------------------------

Mark was in and out for the next couple of days, but for the most part, he was barely there at all. He opened his eyes, he drank when prompted, sometimes they could manage to convince him to eat a mouthful or two of something bland and tasteless but he was just so …

“Sick,” Jaehyun sighed, propping his elbows up on the kitchen table and scrubbing his hands over his face. “I’ve never seen him this sick.”

“I know,” Johnny acknowledged from over by the sink. “He’s going to be so mad when he finally comes round and realises he’s missed two days of practise.”

Jaehyun gave a mirthless scoff because that was exactly what Mark’s first priority would be: the comeback. As if any of that mattered now that he was waiting for a set of test results that could potentially include the word ‘cancer’.

They all knew the possibility and the probability. They just weren’t really talking about it. The idea was just too obscene and horrible and terrifying that they would likely all descend into madness if they thought about it for too long.

Mark wouldn’t be the first Korean celebrity to be diagnosed with cancer or to have to leave the group due to health issues because, if they were being realistic, there was no chance he could keep up with his current schedule if he had to start chemotherapy.

But, Jaehyun reminded himself with a shake of his head, that was only one theory about what was going wrong in his best friend’s body. It might not be anything anywhere near as serious as cancer. It might not be.

It … It might not be.

“When did Manager-nim say that the hospital would call back?”

“I’m not sure,” Johnny murmured over his shoulder, too busy scrubbing the frying pan with soap suds to notice his companion in a state of such distress. “He said that if it was serious, they’d get back to him sooner rather than later so the fact that they haven’t yet could be a good sign if you think about it.”

None of this was a good sign. Nothing they’d seen in the last week was a good sign. A warning sign maybe, but not a good one. Definitely not a good one.

Mark had been in pain, lethargic, struggling to keep up with the rest of them. He’d had dizzy spells, muscle weakness and he was losing weight, too. His health had never slipped so far below what was required of him and they’d just ignored it, hoping it would go away with time.

Jaehyun couldn’t help but picture Mark getting that phone call, finding out he had some dreadful terminal disease that would snatch his life right out from under him, and realising that he could’ve been saved if his friends had just convinced him to go the hospital sooner.

“I think his hearing’s coming back though,” Johnny continued, still utterly oblivious to Jaehyun’s internal soliloquy. “The day he collapsed, he was barely reacting to any noises whatsoever but now he’s a lot more responsive. Well, as responsive as he can be.”

Jaehyun could only nod. It was a relief that Mark wasn’t going to remain as deaf as he’d been for the past few days. There was no room in the industry for a deaf idol who couldn’t even hear the music well enough to know when to start dancing.

Before anything more could be said on the matter, however, the door creaked open and Jisung poked his head into the apartment, looking sheepish and apologetic and every bit as young as he refused to admit he was.

“Hey, Jisung,” Jaehyun croaked by way of dreary greeting. “You okay?”

“Yeah,” the kid nodded, shuffling into the room and closing the door behind him.

He returned Johnny’s welcoming smile with a little more conviction but even with his height and the increasing broadness of his shoulders, he still managed to look small.

“I just wanted to check on Mark-hyung.”

Really, they should have expected that. Even with one of their most pinnacle characters out of action, the rest of them were having to attend every single rehearsal, maybe even more than they had before since they now had to figure out what they would do in the case that Mark was taken out of the comeback.

With all of that, and the sleep they were struggling to find time to acquire, very few of the members had actually found an opportunity to come and visit their fallen brother. The only reason Jaehyun got to see him every day was because he lived in the same apartment.

Jisung and the rest of Dream didn’t have that luxury.

“He’s resting,” Jaehyun provided, because what more could he say when Mark hadn’t actually moved in over forty-eight hours? “I can tell him you stopped by if you like.”

The maknae bit his lip, clearly hesitating with some kind of internal conflict, before he plucked up the courage to ask, “Can I see him? Just for a second. I won’t wake him or anything but I just … kinda … well …”

He was floundering, but Jaehyun understood.

Sometimes he still revisited the grotesque image of Mark lying limp and lax on the ground with his eyes rolling in his head before Johnny gathered him in his arms and heaved him off the floorboards. It wasn’t easy to get a sight like that out of his mind.

“Only if you’re quiet then,” he conceded, smirking in spite of everything when Jisung released a breathy puff of relief.

The two of them left Johnny to the dishes – Jaehyun was only now just realising that Johnny had maybe been a little too enthusiastic with cleaning anything and everything the past few days – and approached Mark’s room.

Careful not to make any unnecessary noise, Jaehyun twisted the nob and pushed the door open just far enough for Jisung to peer into the crack of darkness that lay beyond.

There was the typical Mark-shaped mound in the blankets on the bed, a tuft of black hair sticking up from somewhere within the fray. Jaehyun was glad to see that the plate of sandwiches Taeyong had left on the table that morning was already half gone.

If Mark was gaining his appetite back then surely that was a good sign. A _good_ sign.

“He’s going to be okay, right?” Jisung whispered, and that was when Jaehyun faltered.

Did he tell the truth? Did he admit that he didn’t know what ailment was shutting Mark’s body down into nothing and risk terrifying Jisung to the point that he couldn’t focus on his work? Did he lie and say that Mark would be fine and save the maknae all that worry?

“I … I’m not sure just yet, Jisung.”

As the kid turned to look up at him, he expected to see huge round puppy dog eyes that were brimming with insecurity and worry, but instead the only thing he was faced with was hardened acceptance.

It was so easy to forget nowadays but Jisung was nearing adulthood. He wasn’t that little kid that Jaehyun used to know anymore.

“It’s hard without him,” came the saddened response. “I don’t think I realised quite how much he did until he was gone, but … I don’t know. It’s hard to try and fill his space when he’s the one it was made for, you know?”

Jaehyun nodded.

“I know. But I think we have to accept the fact that he might not be able to perform with us this time around and that’s something we have to learn to handle. No matter how badly we’d like to believe otherwise, none of us are really indispensable.”

Very slowly, he closed the bedroom door to give the patient the space and silence he needed in order to sleep through the illness that threatened his livelihood.

On the other side of the wall, having realised he was once again well and truly alone, Mark closed his eyes and allowed the first tear to fall.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this is a little shorter than I would've liked since I'm still recovering from last week. I think karma's finally getting to me, guys, because some of my symptoms were exactly like Mark's in this fic. Thankfully, I don't have what he has. Speaking of ... has anyone figured out what he has?


	4. Chapter Three

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello, again! Hope you're all doing okay!
> 
> Now suffer!

Mark got the call the next morning, eleven hours after he’d cried himself to sleep with his face buried in his pillow, trying not to think about how likely it was that he was going to lose his job if he didn’t recover in the next few days.

His phone vibrated against the bedside table, the entire structure humming with woody shudders, and it took him a couple of moments to drag himself from the cocoon of miserable solitude he’d made.

He no longer felt nearly as sick as he had for the past couple of days and he could even manage to sit up without feeling as if the world was about to spin off its axis, but the pain in his muscles and the exhaustion that tugged at his bones was a different story.

Maybe, if the hospital hadn’t called that morning, he would’ve found the strength to drag himself out of bed and attend practise, Taeyong’s warnings be damned. Maybe, if the hospital hadn’t called that morning, he would’ve managed to convince his members that he wasn’t going down without a fight, that they weren’t going to need to replace him.

Maybe, if the hospital hadn’t called.

“Hello?”

“Lee Minhyung-ssi?”

“Yes, that’s me.”

“It’s Dr Kwan from Seoul Private Hospital. Your test results have come back and we have a diagnosis. Is there any chance you could come in to receive them?”

Mark bolted into an upright position, eyes suddenly wide and heart in his throat. For a split second, his head felt a little fuzzy at the sudden change in posture but he was too shocked to even notice.

He’d spent almost four days completely bedbound, unable to get up or even eat a proper meal without ejecting his guts into a trashcan, wondering if whatever was wrong with him had rendered him permanently deaf or if his hearing was going to return to how it was.

And yet somehow, he’d forgotten that he still hadn’t received his diagnosis.

He’d been so wrapped up in the pain and misery and fatigue. He’d been so distracted by the idea of not being able to perform with the group in the approaching comeback, or the prospect of being kicked out of the company for good.

The alarm clock beside the bed read the time as 7:30am. If he remembered correctly, the others would already be at the studio, rehearsing without him. At least that meant there was nobody to overhear.

“Is there a chance you could tell me now?” he rasped out, peeling the blankets off him and swinging his legs over the edge of the mattress. “I think I’d like to know sooner rather than later.”

_Just please don’t let it be cancer. Anything else, I can handle. Just please don’t let it be cancer._

“If that’s what suits you. We will need you to come into the hospital today, though, so you can receive treatment.”

Today? That short notice? It was that serious? So life-threatening that they needed him to come in today, without any prior warning, to receive treatment that was undoubtedly expensive and take up doctors’ time that was undoubtedly invaluable?

_Just please don’t let it be cancer._

Mark curled his fingertips around the edge of the mattress, placing his feet flat against the floor and staring down at where his toes wriggled anxiously.

For the briefest moment, he wished he had someone here to hold his hand.

“Have you heard of a condition by the name of rhabdomyolysis?”

Was that cancer? Cancers often went by big long names that nobody could pronounce or interpret, didn’t they? Did that mean it was cancer? Did he have cancer in his brain and bones?

“No.”

“It’s an illness that affects the muscles,” the doctor continued, levelled and calm and completely the opposite of how Mark was faring on his own in the dark of his room. “The body reaches a point where it is so overworked that the muscle tissue starts to die, break down and diffuse into the blood. To put it in laymen’s terms, your muscles can no longer keep up with the amount of exercise you’re putting them through and so they’re beginning to disintegrate.”

It was probably a bad thing, but the only words Mark was capable of processing in his addled mind were, _so not cancer then._

In that moment, it didn’t matter to him that his muscles were literally disappearing from his bones and escaping into his blood. It didn’t occur to him that any of that was potentially dangerous or that it was going to have any long-lasting affects on him.

The only thing he cared about was that it wasn’t cancer. And if it wasn’t cancer then he could go back to practise and be unstoppable and show every single one of those people who thought he was written off for good that he was back and he was just as capable as he’d ever been.

“It’s a serious condition, Minhyung-ssi,” came the reminder from the other end of the line that maybe he was jumping the gun a little. “If left untreated, you could do yourself irreparable damage. We’re going to need you to come into the hospital this afternoon so that we can hook you up with an IV and try to dilute the concentration of myoglobin in your blood.”

It was all just meaningless words to him. It meant nothing. Even if the man said that Mark was going to grow an extra head, he wouldn’t have been able to dampen his spirits.

He was okay. It wasn’t cancer. It wasn’t terminal. Serious, sure, but not terminal. And terminal was what he had been most afraid of. Anything else, he could handle. Anything else, he could put off until after the comeback.

The comeback had to be his first priority now. Getting back on his feet, regaining his fitness, catching up on what he’d missed while he’d been sick before the choreographer could erase him from the formations entirely.

This disease … rhabdo … something-or-other … It could wait. It wasn’t important. It would still be there when he was finished with promotions and then he could get treatment. All they would give him was an IV anyway so it wasn’t like he needed any serious intervention.

The relief was so strong that he actually laughed, combing his fringe away from his eyes and shaking his head at his own stupidity.

He’d got himself so worked up over the last few days, but none of that mattered now. The only thing he needed to worry about was getting himself to the studio so he could reintegrate into the group with whom he belonged.

He was okay. It wasn’t cancer. He was okay.

“Thank you,” he puffed out, a little breathless, into the phone as he turned on the light and started rooting around in his cupboard for fresh clothes. “I really appreciate you calling. The issue is that my company is releasing an album in a couple of weeks’ time and I really need to be attending rehearsals every day so is there any chance that I can postpone getting treatment until afterwards?”

“Minhyung-ssi, I don’t think you heard me correctly.”

Mark froze, halfway through pulling on his socks, and stared down at the phone he’d left on the bed, waiting for the doctor to elaborate. He sounded frustrated, irritated, exasperated when all his patient had done was ask for a few weeks to spare.

“This disease is caused by excessive activity. You’ve worked your body to its limit and now it’s quite literally breaking down. You cannot partake in any more strenuous training or else your condition will continue to deteriorate.”

Oh. Well, that did complicate things a little.

“Is there not a drug or something you can give me that will slow down the effects?” Mark probed hopefully, stuffing his heels into his shoes.

Even if there wasn’t some miracle pill he could take that would delay the progression of his newly-discovered illness, he was going to be attending that practise. A little muscle damage wasn’t going to stop him.

“No, Minhyung-ssi.” Of course not. Because the world wasn’t that kind. “Right now, the level of myoglobin in your blood is dangerously high. If you continue as you are, you risk doing permanent damage to your kidneys. We also need to run some additional tests to determine the exact cause of your neurological symptoms.”

Mark had to bite back a growl of frustration. He was so close to being able to return to doing what he loved and now his doctor was saying that he couldn’t just because of some dumb kidneys.

What did kidneys even do anyway?

“If I’m careful,” he tried, taking the phone with him as he moved to the hallway to grab his bag. “I can still dance, right? Or I can at least be on stage with them. This thing isn’t fatal, is it?”

“It can be, Minhyung-ssi.”

Well, shit. He hadn’t expected that answer.

His backpack was slung over his shoulder. He was dressed, he had his shoes on, there was a banana in his hand that would provide him with just enough energy he needed to get to the company building and the dance studio where his friends were.

He was on the doormat, staring at the latch with wistful eyes. So near and yet so far. His body couldn’t have waited for just another couple of months? Just until he’d finished all the promotions and made it through the end-of-year awards? It couldn’t have held out until then?

He never thought he’d have to ask himself the question: What did he care about more? His life or his work?

And he never thought he’d have so much difficulty providing the answer.

“What’s the probability that this will kill me in the next three months?”

“With your lifestyle, it’s a possibility.”

Mark could have cried right there and then. His bag slid from his shoulder to land on the mat with a solemn thump and he brought up a hand to scrub meaninglessly at his eyes.

It was so unfair. It was so, so unfair.

“It’s just an IV, right?” he mumbled into the phone, dejected and defeated. “It won’t take long?”

“Come into the hospital, Minhyung-ssi,” the doctor implored by way of reply. “We can discuss things further once we’re in the same room.”

So, so unfair.

“Okay.”

\-----------------------------

It felt as if he could just as well have drunken a bottle of water and have exactly the same results.

The IV bag the nurse had hooked him up to was filled with bicarbonate – a name Mark only remembered because it sounded like the same stuff Taeyong used to bake cakes – but it just looked like the same stuff that he could get out of the tap at home.

 _Just an hour,_ he told himself as he lay back against the bed and stared up at the ceiling. _That’s all it will take. Just an hour and then I can get out of here._

“The problem is,” Dr Kwan was waffling beside him. “Without a prolonged period of rest in which your body can recover properly, your muscle tissue will continue to die. Your kidneys are struggling to keep up with the amount of myoglobin in your blood as it is. Any more and they will start to shut down. We’ll have to put you on dialysis or, worst case scenario, consider a transplant.”

Mark’s eyebrows shot up at that, “Seriously?”

“Yes, Minhyung-ssi,” Kwan sighed, and now he was really starting to lose his patience. “I said to you over the phone, this is a serious condition. I’m also concerned about your headaches and episodes of nausea since these aren’t consistent with rhabdomyolysis. Your MRI didn’t show anything so I’d like to put you in contact with an ENT specialist who can run some more tests.”

More tests? More doctors? More check-ups and treatment sessions? Something else that wasn’t this muscle disease? All Mark had asked for was a chance to perform with his friends at the end of the year. Nothing more.

So, why was the world seemingly punishing him for a crime he hadn’t committed?

A nurse slipped in through the door, bowing briefly to Kwan before holding out the clipboard in her hand to Mark. He took it, scanned it over and frowned in confusion.

“What is this?”

“Your admission papers,” she supplied with a forced smile. “If you could just sign –”

“Wait, wait, wait,” Mark interrupted her, shuffling a little higher against his pillows and trying not to jostle the IV in his arm. “Admission papers? I’m not … Once this is done, I’m out of here. I’m not being admitted.”

The nurse’s face fell into one of uncertainty as her gaze zipped from her patient to her superior and then back again. Kwan rubbed his forefinger over his eyebrow, an action Mark had seen Kun do when he was struggling to contain his frustration.

“You need to be admitted,” he stated once he’d lowered his hand, and his tone left no room for protest. He gestured towards the IV bag. “This is just the first round of treatment you need to undergo. We have to admit you, ensure your muscles are getting sufficient rest and the balance of chemicals in your blood is under control.”

“No,” Mark scoffed, puffing out a mirthless laugh that only existed because he was too angry to do anything else. “You said it was just an IV, and that was it.”

“That’s not what I said, Min –”

“Stop calling me that,” he snapped. “My name is Mark, and I’m not interested in being a patient here. I’ll take as many pills as you need me to and go to the consultation with this ENT specialist guy – I’ll even come in every couple of days for an IV bag if I have to – but I have things I need to do. I can’t be laid up here when I’m healthy enough to be out there.”

He was perfectly aware that he was being the patient from hell. He was arguing with the professionals, trying to convince them that he knew better when it was obvious that they were far more qualified to pass judgement on his condition.

But they didn’t understand.

He needed this. Without his career as an idol, he was nothing. Everything he’d ever worked for, everything he’d ever loved was entangled with his profession. His friends, his family, his income, his everyday life … Everything.

Comeback was only two weeks away. If he had to skip off to the hospital a couple of times to have water filtered through his veins then so be it but he wasn’t going any further than that. Anything else they wanted to do to him could wait until the new year.

Kwan certainly did not look happy, but he seemed to have realised that this was not one patient who was going to change his mind.

“You’ll have to sign some papers confirming that you left the hospital against medical advice,” he sighed with the air of a parent who had well and truly given up on their petulant teenage son.

“Fine,” Mark nodded. “I’ll sign whatever I have to.”

Kwan levelled him with a glare, one that said with the utmost clarity: _you are going to regret this,_ and maybe he was right. Maybe Mark would wake up one day in the very near future and realise he should have taken the helping hand that was offered to him while he had the chance.

But not right now.

Right now, the only thing that mattered to him was his job and his friends. He wasn’t going to let them down. He wasn’t going to let them believe that he was too sick to join them on that stage and he wasn’t going to break the promise he’d made to himself.

He was stronger than this. He could fight it, push it down, kick it aside just long enough to make it to the end of the runway and then – if he still needed it – he would return to the hospital.

The nurse handed him the papers and he signed his name on the dotted line, giving them back to her and ignoring the unimpressed look she shot at him as he did.

“You will need to come in every five days for blood tests,” Kwan was saying even as Mark was having the empty IV bag disconnected from his arm. “So that we can keep on top of the muscle death. If you start to feel ill again, or you suffer another vertigo attack, come straight to the emergency department and ask for me. I’ll be in touch regarding the ENT specialist.”

Mark nodded his thanks and he couldn’t help the twinge of guilt from blooming in the pit of his stomach. He hadn’t needed to be so rude to the man when the only thing he was trying to do was keep him safe and do his job.

Muttering a quiet word of gratitude and an even quieter one of apology, he swung his bag over his back and exited the hospital.

The brightness of the daylight was still a little aggressive to his eyes so, on top of the mask he used to hide his identity, he wore a pair of sunglasses to counteract the assault of the sonic rays.

Even if someone did manage to spot him, they would have no idea who he was, and that was exactly what he needed. If any fan or member of the media discovered that a member of the beloved NCT was attending frequent sessions at a private hospital, there would be uproar.

Mark plucked his phone from his pocket and ordered a taxi before opening up his contact list and skimming through the names that resided at the top.

His first thought was Taeyong, but he wasn’t sure where their relationship stood after the fight they’d had in the studio almost a week ago, so instead he clicked on Doyoung’s name. He wandered towards the road, checking his watch and waiting for his cab to show up.

“Hey, Doyoung-hyung.” He tried to keep his voice jovial and jaunty, to hide any trace of the sickness that he now knew threatened his most vital bodily functions. “No, yeah, I’m feeling much better today so I’m gonna jump in a cab and head on over to join you. Don’t do any of my songs without me.”

He hung up without giving Doyoung a chance to ask questions or make a rebuttal or call Taeyong over to shut down Mark’s destructive recklessness.

They didn’t understand.

Nobody did. 


	5. Chapter Four

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope everybody had a wonderful Christmas/Holiday Season. Also, congratulations to X22rebel, the only one who guessed that Meniere's Disease was a part of this story. If I had a prize, I would give it to you :)

“It’s called Meniere’s Disease.”

“Okay …” Mark acknowledged, briefly turfing through his memories to see if already knew anything about his latest diagnoses. “And what’s that?”

“It’s an affliction of the inner ear, usually caused by poor fluid drainage,” the ENT rattled off, her legs crossed and her fingers interlocked in front of her. As if this was all perfectly normal and okay. “It’s really quite rare. I only knew to look for it because I’ve had a patient who suffered the same symptoms.”

Mark dropped his head between his shoulders and ran his fingers through his hair. He had no intention of feeding this woman’s ego or showering her with the compliments she so clearly wanted.

After a solid three or four hours of stupid hearing tests and being forced to follow a light with his eyes and all sorts of other useless mumbo jumbo, he’d just been told that he had another disease. On top of the one he already had. 

“Is this related at all to the rhabdomyolysis?” he asked, raising his head to gouge her reaction.

There wasn’t much of one.

“Not at all. They’re two very separate conditions. It’s possible that the rhabdomyolysis weakened your immune system to the point where the fluid in your ears was affected, but it really is just bad luck that you’ve contracted both at the same time.”

And wasn’t that just the story of his life? Bad luck. Two simultaneous diseases that couldn’t have presented themselves at a worse time.

The comeback was a week away. Jisung had just hurt his knee. Taeyong’s back was playing up again and the managers were seriously considering removing him from promotions before he ended up paralysed from the waist down or something equally sinister.

Mark couldn’t afford to be sick. He couldn’t afford to have one illness, let alone two. He was already having his blood drained out of him once a week only for his doctor to demand that he lie on a bed and have more water filtered into his veins as if it was making any difference.

He still felt weak. His muscles still hurt. He still got a little dizzy when he spun too fast or stood up too suddenly. His members were getting suspicious and he wasn’t getting any better.

“So, what’s the treatment?”

It had better not be hospital admission. Or surgery. Or anything that would debilitate him enough to render him useless to his group. The universe had dealt him a bad enough hand as it was. It wouldn’t be fair to keep piling on the tragedies.

“Well, unfortunately, there’s no cure …”

Of course, there fucking wasn’t. Because Mark Lee was the unluckiest person in the world.

“But I can prescribe medications that you can take when you experience an episode. They can help with dizziness and nausea. Some patients find that lowering their sodium intake can reduce the frequency of the attacks. We can fit you for a hearing aid if that’s something you’re interested in but since you’ve only had a couple of episodes, it’s difficult to tell what your specific needs are. There is the option of inner ear injections or surgery but we usually only reserve those methods for very serious cases. When you …”

Mark zoned out. He didn’t care. There was nothing of relevance to him in this discussion. All he had to do was pop a couple of pills, stop putting salt on his food and hope that he wouldn’t get another rush of sickness before the album was released.

Oh, and also pray his muscles wouldn’t completely disintegrate and shut down his kidneys in the process.

\----------------------------

“Okay, good job, guys. Take a break.”

Never before had his choreographer’s words sounded so sweet.

Mark stumbled over to the mirror, frantically swatting at the sweat that threatened to drip from the tip of his nose like a faucet, and slid down onto the floor with a huff of exhausted satisfaction.

He finished his water bottle in a single gulp and then allowed his head to fall back against the polished surface, feeling the coolness spreading across his scalp. He stretched his legs out in front of him to try and combat the cramps and rubbed absently at his shoulder.

The amount of kinesiology tape that he had to encase his body in every single day was starting to become ridiculous, and his physio kept complaining that he went through an entire pack each time he had to apply new strips to his aching joints.

But Mark didn’t care. He would pay for the new tape if he needed to. All that mattered to him was that he was making it through the practises and he wasn’t collapsing or puking into a trash can or wallowing in bed for five days straight without being able to get up.

He was doing it. It was painful and he was exhausted almost to the point of tears, but he was doing it. All the suffering would be worth it when he got to stand on that stage at the end of the year and breathe in the cheer from the crowd as Taeyong gave the acceptance speech.

If Taeyong ever made it, though.

Mark opened his eyes and observed his leader with frown lines creased into his forehead. As soon as the music stopped, he’d seen Taeyong get down on the floor but he’d been so focused on making it to the wall without collapsing himself that he hadn’t stopped to check.

Now his hyung was lying on his stomach in the centre of the room, face buried in the crook of his elbow as various grunts and groans of pain emanated from within the cage he’d made out of his arms.

The physio – the same physio Mark had become a little too well acquainted with over the last few weeks – was pressing down on his lower back, and he had that same expression of worry that he’d shown Mark on countless occasions.

He glanced up at the choreographer, who was standing over them with his hands on his hips and his jaw bulging, and Mark saw him mutter the words, “serious” and “no longer an option”.

“He’ll be okay.”

Mark glanced up just in time to see Jungwoo plodding over before he was joined in his little slouching party by the mirror.

“He’s Taeyong-hyung. He’d perform with a broken neck if he had to.”

He almost had on one occasion, not too long ago.

“Yeah …” Mark mumbled, still watching as Taeyong slowly sat up and accepted the water bottle that was handed to him. “Still.”

Jungwoo was absolutely right. Taeyong had a way of pulling together every last dregs of stamina that existed inside of him when it came to performing through an injury. He’d been doing it since their debut and had barely missed a day since.

Except now, at long last, his condition seemed to be catching up with him. If he dropped out then God knew what it was going to mean for the rest of them. Without him, they were like lost little lambs with no clue where they were supposed to go or what they were supposed to say.

Kun and Mark, already established leaders, would be expected to pick up the slack. That was why Mark had to get through this. That was why Mark had to grit his teeth and push down the pain and pop as many pills as he needed to.

“So what’s the diagnosis?”

“What?”

Jungwoo’s abrupt interrogation caught him completely off guard. He turned his attention his hyung and saw that he wasn’t even looking at him. He was too focused on the opposite wall, but Mark could tell that he wasn’t about to accept a lie for an answer.

“You know, your diagnosis. They must have one now considering how much time you spend at the hospital these days.”

A twinge of guilt flared through Mark’s gut. He had been at the hospital a lot in the last couple of weeks. He’d needed to be, but that didn’t mean the group hadn’t suffered his absence because of it.

He needed to think up an answer or he was going to have more questions to deal with and more members breathing down his neck like overprotective vultures. He couldn’t tell the truth, at least not the whole truth, or else he would lose his place in the team.

He certainly couldn’t mention the rhabdomyolysis. Even if he refused to specifically state what it was and the dangers it posed, Jungwoo would google it as soon as he was gone and then he would know that Mark’s life was potentially at risk.

“Meniere’s Disease,” he decided on, because at least that one wasn’t going to kill him.

Jungwoo turned to him, nose wrinkled in bewilderment, and Mark couldn’t help a little puff of amusement escaping his mouth at the sight. His hyung always knew how to make him laugh, even when his muscles were dying and his pain was through the roof.

“It’s just like serious vertigo attacks,” he informed him. “I can take pills and stuff to control it, but it’s nothing bad. You don’t need to worry.”

“Why would I worry about you?” Jungwoo scoffed sarcastically. “It’s not like you collapsed in the hallway and became a corpse for half a week.”

“I was not a corpse,” Mark defended, placing one hand over his heart to signal his exaggerated woundedness. “I was breathing and …”

He trailed off, trying to remember what else he was doing during that time. Jungwoo watched him with both eyebrows raised expectantly as he waited for the moment when Mark realised that he pretty much had been a corpse for those couple of days.

“Yeah, alright,” he admitted in defeat. “But I’m fine now, and since I know what’s wrong with me, I can prevent it from getting that bad in the future.”

He wasn’t sure if that was strictly true but it seemed to raise Jungwoo’s spirits a little, and that was all that really mattered, right?

“I’m glad,” Jungwoo hummed, leaning back against the wall with a sigh of content. “I’d hate for you to have to go on hiatus. It’s a horrible feeling.”

Mark sat up a little, “It is?”

“Yeah. When I had to last year, for the first few weeks, I was actually more depressed than I had been before. I was just convinced that the fans were going to forget about me or the company would replace me with a new member or something. I wanted to be completely better before I came back but I was terrified that I was taking too long and that my place would be gone before I was ready.”

He sounded so casual as he said it, as though those months hadn’t been some of the toughest since his trainee days, but Mark felt like a bomb had just gone off in his chest.

Jungwoo rarely talked about his hiatus the previous year and the others had seen no need to press him on it. They’d had no idea he’d felt that way for so long. Mark had no idea that the two of them had that in common.

Those were the same fears that had him waking up in cold sweats at night. The same fears that convinced him he wouldn’t be giving into his sickness until the time was right. The same fears that were making him risk his health and possibly his life.

The feeling of being replaced, of being forgotten … He knew that feeling. He felt that feeling even now when he was managing to perform and keep up with the others. It was an overwhelming terror that, any moment, his body would just give out and he would be axed immediately.

He couldn’t allow himself to feel that way. He wouldn’t survive it. He needed NCT like he needed air to breathe. It was the reason he’d moved so far from home, away from his family and his friends and his entire life. Without it, there was nothing for him here.

“I’m glad you won’t have to go through that,” Jungwoo muttered as he took another swig from his water bottle.

“Yeah …” Mark mumbled in absent response. “Me, too.”

His momentary lapse of reality was brought to an abrupt end when a much larger, much lankier figure plopped down beside him. Sungchan. All legs and limbs and still struggling to figure out how to use them.

He reminded Mark a bit like a baby giraffe, particularly since he’d hit puberty and had shot up to a height he didn’t know how to exist with.

“Ayy … Sungchan …” Jungwoo greeted, reaching across Mark to clasp the younger boy’s hand. “Looking good, man.”

Sungchan narrowed his eyes, and Mark snorted. None of them looked good right now. They were all sweaty and pale and smelled like a high school locker room. Those of them who had longer hair – Sungchan included – were either having to tie it back or let it hang in damp clumps around their face.

It seemed that Sungchan had needed to go with the latter.

“Eesh,” Jungwoo commented, raising his hands in mock surrender. “You try and compliment somebody …”

“I just heard the managers saying that they might pull Taeyong-hyung from promotions,” Sungchan interrupted. There was true concern in his voice and Mark’s head had never snapped up so fast. “Can we manage without him?”

Mark opened his mouth without really knowing how he was going to respond, but Jungwoo beat him to it, and slapped him on the back while he was at it.

“Of course, we can. We’ve got Mark. He’s like a mini Taeyong-hyung. And I mean that in regards to size, not talent. He’s just as good as Taeyong-hyung in that department. So long as we’ve got him, we’ll be fine.”

Sungchan looked at Mark. Mark looked at Sungchan. There was a glimmer of hope in that baby’s eyes, as though he were pleading with his hyung to confirm what Jungwoo had just said.

He was still so new to this. He was used to Taeyong taking the reigns and being the strong, powerful centre figure that he was. He was afraid, just as they all were, that everything would fall apart if they didn’t have their pillar and now he was looking at Mark to quash those fears.

How could Mark say ‘no’ to a face like that?

“Sure,” he said, forcing a grin onto his face that he hoped wasn’t marred by the churning in his stomach. “We’ll be fine.”

As if on cue, his phone began to buzz on the ground beside him, lighting up the floorboards with its rhythmic vibrations. He scooped it up, flipped it over and read his doctor’s name on the contact ID.

“’scuse me,” he muttered, using the mirror behind him as a brace to push him to his feet.

The world tilted momentarily and he had to pause, blinking. A wave of cold washed over him from head to toe as gravity drew every drop of his blood into his feet. His thighs, back and shoulders were whining in pain from the impromptu change in position.

It took a couple of long seconds before he was able to see straight again and he glanced behind him to make sure neither Sungchan or Jungwoo had seen his moment of weakness, but they were busy doing whatever it was that made them both so weird.

Thank God.

Mark slipped out of the room, ensuring he was alone in the corridor before he accepted the call.

“Hello?”

“Hello, Minhyung-ssi?”

Mark rolled his eyes. He’d told that man a dozen times that he preferred the name that was given to him at birth, the name that reminded him of home, but apparently his wishes were the least of this guy’s worries.

“Your blood results came back, and your myoglobin levels have risen significantly higher than we would like. Your kidneys are no longer able to function effectively, as I’m sure you’re already aware of.”

Of course. Of fucking course. He should’ve seen this coming. He _had_ seen this coming. He’d known he was living on borrowed time the moment he’d gone to flush the toilet that morning and had seen blood in the bowl.

Why couldn’t he just have a couple more weeks? Even if he never made it to the award shows, he needed to be there for the promotions. Jisung couldn’t dance. Taeyong probably couldn’t either.

A third loss would be catastrophic.

“Listen, Doctor …” he started with a sigh. “I really can’t miss any more of my work. I know that you believe otherwise, but –”

“This is no longer about what I believe,” his doctor cut him off. “It’s about what the test results tell me. We tried to do this your way, Minhyung-ssi, but it isn’t working and, as your physician, I cannot allow you to endanger your health any further. You need to stop dancing and be admitted for treatment before you do yourself irreparable damage.”

Did it sound scary? ‘Irreparable damage’? Of course, it did. But if he didn’t help take the weight of his team in the absence of their leader, there would be irreparable damage there, too.

He had a choice to make. NCT or himself.

There had never been any contest.

“I’m sorry, Doctor. I’ll come in this Friday for an IV like I was supposed to, but I’m not signing any admission papers. Thank you for updating me.”

He hung up the phone and returned to the dance studio.


	6. Chapter Five

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy new year, everybody! I apologise profusely for the wait but real life caught up with me and I had a little (read: a lot) too much schoolwork that I had to prioritise over writing. Anyway, I hope you enjoy this extra-long ending chapter in return.

Donghyuck had been watching out of the corner of his eye for some time now, just long enough for his suspicions to be confirmed: Mark wasn’t okay.

They were in the middle of a soundcheck, preparing for the first live performance of their newest title tracks. Jisung was with them even if he wasn’t going to be able to dance and Taeyong had been sent home but the rest of them were buzzing.

This kind of energy was always present when an album was peeking over the horizon. Everyone was excited to be – mostly – together, chatting and joking and laughing with one another while the technicians fiddled about backstage. Everyone was grinning.

Everyone except Mark.

He had his mask pulled down beneath his chin and his snapback lodged low over his eyes, keeping his nose pointing towards the floor so that nobody would see the very deliberately controlled breaths he was taking.

His hands were on his hips. He only did that when he was feeling faint.

Donghyuck peered up at the stage lights looming over their heads. They were unnecessarily bright and some of their more rigorous routines required a plethora of flashing colours that could make even a healthy person experience some pretty serious dizziness.

They hadn’t even started to practise yet, but Donghyuck wasn’t confident that Mark was going to make it to the first song. He looked like he was trying not to fall over, keeping his distance from the others and covering his eyes with his hand.

Even from twelve feet away, Donghyuck could see the hunch in his shoulders that signified the pain he was in, and the support tape was plastered over the back of his neck like some kind of toddler’s collage.

It would have been blindingly obvious, even for someone who didn’t know him, that he was pushing his body further than it was meant to be pushed for the sake of his team. It didn’t matter if someone went over there and asked him if he was okay. He was just going to lie.

Donghyuck wished, not for the first time, that Taeyong was with them. He would know what to say. He was the only one with the guts to tattle-tale to the managers without fearing being on the receiving end of Mark’s wrath because he knew it was in the boy’s best interests.

“Okay, WayV!” their manager hollered over the chatter. “We’re gonna go with ‘Nectar’ first so everybody else, get your asses off stage!”

Xuxi and Kunhang made a great deal of noise as their unit was taking positions, hyping up themselves and each other with needless shouts of indecipherable nonsense and a level of energy that was to be envied.

Most of the others were laughing at them as they took their seats in the bleachers to watch the practise performance, but Donghyuck was distracted by the sickly skeletal figure that slowly sidled out of the door.

Muttering something to Renjun about needing to use the bathroom, he rose from his chair and followed. His instincts were on fire and nobody else seemed to have noticed what was right in front of them.

To put it in the politest way possible, Mark was an idiot. He had an inflated sense of self-importance that had managed to convince him that promotions couldn’t possibly proceed if he wasn’t there to be centre stage.

He wasn’t arrogant – not by any means – but he was a moron. He probably knew he wasn’t going to make it to tomorrow when their album would drop officially, and that was why he was still trying to hide the severity of his condition.

So that nobody would be able to do what needed to be done and pull him out.

Donghyuck heard the booming beat of _Nectar_ reverberating down the hallway, accompanied by the voices of his friends and the stomping of feet on floors before he slipped through the bathroom door and the noise was reduced dramatically.

“Hyung …”

He’d known it was bad.

He never could’ve known it was _this_ bad.

Mark had ripped off both his mask and his cap, abandoning them on the floor by his feet as the water splattered into the basin and his pill bottles tumbled out of his pocket due to the violence of the tremor in his hands.

“I’ve got them,” Donghyuck murmured, stooping to retrieve the containers and returning them to his hyung’s grasp.

Mark was sweating. Profusely. And shaking. Alarmingly. His fingers fumbled for the caps before he finally managed to rip them off and empty the tablets into his palm. He was having to lean all of his weight against the sink just to support the instability of his legs.

He threw back his head, shovelled the medication into his mouth and swallowed it dry before letting out a shaky groan of discomfort and slumping low over the basin.

Donghyuck didn’t know what to do other than put a hand on his back.

“Do you … need something?” he asked uselessly. “Water or …?”

“I’m –”

“Hyung, if you say you’re fine then I’m calling an ambulance right here, right now.”

He didn’t know if the threat was empty or not but it effectively silenced Mark halfway through his favourite lie. Or maybe it was the moist retch that abruptly exploded from his lips.

Nothing came up but he kept gagging, bent almost completely over the sink as his knees wobbled beneath him. Donghyuck slipped an arm around his waist just to provide some extra support and make sure he wasn’t going to collapse but other than that, he was helpless.

He glanced over his shoulder, almost hoping that someone would just walk in so he could ask them what he was supposed to do with somebody who was so sick but so adamant that they weren’t going to go back home and rest.

He tried to remember everything he’d read about Meniere’s Disease and how to help a patient through an episode.

“Can you hold yourself up?” he breathed in Mark’s ear, reluctant to let go of him for fear that he would hear a loud thump as soon as he turned his back. “Just for a second while I turn the lights off?”

Still retching and dry heaving, Mark probably didn’t have the strength or state of mind to reply. Donghyuck suddenly remembered that a symptom of an attack this severe was hearing loss and tinnitus. It was probable that his hyung didn’t even know he was talking.

Throwing caution to the winds, Donghyuck released the grip he had on his friend and lunged for the light switch but as soon as he let go, Mark’s knees buckled and he was forced to abandon his mission in favour of catching him before he could fall.

“Okay … Guess I’m staying here then.”

Mark had both forearms resting on either side of the sink, waist digging into the porcelain rim and legs trembling violently with the effort of keeping him up. If it weren’t for Donghyuck, he probably would’ve crumpled like paper in the rain.

And he was still dry heaving into the basin, disgusting belching sounds projecting themselves from his mouth as his stomach protested the lack of food to throw up.

“Hyung …” Donghyuck winced, returning to gently rubbing up and down the boy’s back. “I know you want to be a martyr and all that but this is ridiculous. There’s no way you can go on stage tomorrow like this.”

He still wasn’t sure if Mark could hear him over the sound of his own retching and the metallic jangling that was probably plaguing his eardrums, but he had to try and get through to the idiot who seemed determined to collapse in front of a dozen cameras and a packed audience.

“Yeah …” Mark wheezed, catching Donghyuck off guard as he realised that his words were actually carrying some weight. “I’m beginning to think you … might be …”

Alarmed at the sudden heaviness to his breathing, Donghyuck glanced at his hyung’s face in the mirror just in time to see his mouth fall open in a final gasp for air before his eyes rolled back and his weight grew dead.

“Okay …” Donghyuck repeated, tightening his arms around Mark’s middle as he carefully guided him down onto the ground. “Okay … It’s okay … I got you …”

He managed to get his hyung seated on the filthy tiles with his back against the wall but the guy’s head was rolling on his shoulders and his limbs were like lead. And Donghyuck was starting to wonder if there was something else he should be doing.

Like dialling 119.

“Hyung, this is just an episode, right?” he probed, cupping Mark’s cheek to stop his head from colliding with the sink. “This is just the Meniere’s Disease, isn’t it? This is … This is normal?”

He was trying to think back to the first attack when Mark had collapsed in the company hallway. Everything had been so hectic as they rushed to get him help that none of them had actually bothered to take notes.

Donghyuck couldn’t remember if it had been this terrifying back then, or if there was something different this time around that hadn’t been present before.

“Hyung …” Why wasn’t he responding? “Can you hear me?”

_Don’t panic. Don’t panic. Don’t panic. It’s alright. Mark has a diagnosed condition. It’s not like you have no idea what’s wrong with him. He’s been through this before and he was okay. He just needed time to recover afterwards. He’s … It’s okay … Right?_

Mark’s hand gave a very violent, very restricted twitch that resembled more of a partial seizure than anything else before it flopped into his lap like every bone had just vanished.

His head lolled back against the wall, still with Donghyuck’s hand supporting his chin, and their gazes met. Eyes that were blown wide and terrified met ones that were narrowed and bloodshot.

A trickle of sweat ran down the side of Mark’s face.

“I can’t feel … my legs …” he rasped, so hoarsely that Donghyuck barely heard him over the sound of the tap still gushing water into the sink. His eyes welled up as the realisation hit him. “I can’t … feel anything …”

That was the clarification that Donghyuck needed.

“Okay …” he echoed for what felt like the umpteenth time as he scrambled to his feet. “Okay … Okay …”

This wasn’t Meniere’s Disease. There was no way it could be. Never once on any of the websites that Donghyuck read had it said that a condition of the inner ear caused … this.

He had to get someone. He had to call for an ambulance, make sure Mark got to hospital so they could figure out what was happening and why. He never should’ve come here alone. He should’ve brought someone else with him.

How far was it from the bathroom back to the stage? Could he make it there and back in less than twenty seconds? Could he risk leaving even for that long? What if Mark threw up and suffocated? What if he had a seizure or … or his heart stopped beating?

He couldn’t risk it.

His hand leapt for his back pocket and cursed out loud when he remembered that he’d left his phone in his bag. He could yell for help but no one would hear him over the music. He could go and find somebody but he didn’t want to leave Mark in case he choked on his own tongue.

Muscles locked with terror, he lurched towards the door. Maybe he could just stick his head out into the hallway and scream until someone heard him? Would Mark be able to wait that long?

He glanced over his shoulder.

One look told him all that he needed to know: Mark couldn’t wait that long.

“Come here,” Donghyuck gasped, lunging forwards and wrapping his arms around the patient’s chest so he could heave him off the floor.

The only reason that was even possible was because of the sheer amount of muscle mass that Mark had lost over the past few weeks. He was completely useless, unable to move a single limb to assist in the process.

It was terror and adrenaline alone that helped him get his hyung onto his back, arms hanging heavy over his caretaker’s chest and chin digging into the muscle meat between his neck and shoulder.

Donghyuck knew he’d made the right choice when his best friend lost consciousness as soon as they made it out of the bathroom.

He started running, Mark’s weight feeling a thousand times heavier now that he wasn’t awake enough to at least try to support it.

With every step he took, his hyung’s body grew denser and limper and more and more boneless until Donghyuck was having to lean forwards almost forty-five degrees to stop him from sliding off his back.

Panting from a combination of the panic and the exertion, he finally reached the door to the auditorium and, with his hands hooked beneath Mark’s knees, he had no choice but to kick it open so violently that it ricocheted off the opposite wall with an almighty crash.

There had been no music playing as everybody prepared for the next number, probably wondering why two members had vanished off the face of the Earth, and so there was no background noise to drown out the sound of Donghyuck’s arrival.

Gasping for breath, tears of panic in his eyes, his best friend and one of NCT’s most important components hanging, unconscious, on his back.

No wonder everybody turned to stare at him.

“Help me …” was all he could come up with.

Too little, too late.

\-----------------------------------

Mark woke up in a bed that wasn’t his. He could tell just from the texture of the blankets and the feel of the clothes he was wearing. There was no way he would ever wear polyester to go to sleep in.

Before he opened his eyes, he knew where he was. The smell of disinfectant, the rhythmic beep beside his head, the noise and multitude of voices bustling around just outside the door.

He gave his fingers a twitch, knowing he would feel the sharp tug of the needle in the back of his hand. He opened his eyes, blinked, and familiarised himself with the plain white slab of the ceiling tiles.

_Damn it._

What happened? Did he fall asleep while he was getting an IV? Did he just not wake up when his members tried to rouse him that morning? Did he run a fever so high that it risked damaging his brain? Did he fall? Did he collapse? Did he collapse on stage?

His head shot up off the pillow and pain ricocheted down his spine like a bolt of lightning, drawing a hiss from deep within his roasted throat. He fell back into the softness of the material beneath him and closed his eyes once again.

It should be illegal for a person’s body to hurt this much.

Every bone ached. Everyone tendon, every neurone, every nerve, every cell, every … every muscle.

_DAMN IT._

“I imagine you’re not in the mood to try that again,” came a very unimpressed voice from somewhere to his left. “So next time you feel like getting up, do it a bit more slowly, okay?”

Mark groaned low in his throat, “I’m your hyung, Jisung. Show me a little courtesy.”

“No,” came the indignant retort. “I’m mad at you.”

Made sense. Mark was mad at himself, too, even if he didn’t quite know why yet. But if he was here and if Jisung of all people was with him, he must’ve done something stupid enough to warrant a hospital admission that he couldn’t even remember.

He opened his eyes again now that the throbbing in his head had died somewhat, and sighed up at the ceiling.

There was no way the others didn’t know now that he’d been hiding something, that he’d lied to them and that he’d knowingly been putting himself at risk because of his own selfish desire to be on that stage with them.

The following days were going to be filled with cold shoulders and bitter scoffs, death glares and conversations that involved the words, “what the hell were you thinking?”, and there was absolutely no chance that he would be allowed to participate in the comeback.

He turned his head and caught sight of Jisung sitting beside the bed, slouched in his chair with his toes perched on the railing and his phone in his hand. He was sulking but Mark could still see the ever so slight redness in his eyes.

“Jisung …” he croaked, needing to know what had happened and what was going to happen next. “Jisung, what day is it?”

His maknae shot him a glance over the top of his phone before returning his attention to the screen and huffing out a reluctant, “Tuesday.”

Mark allowed his eyes to flutter closed for a brief second of release and fought the urge to punch himself repeatedly in the face. The frustration and the rage was bubbling up inside him but he didn’t have the energy to let it out.

Tuesday was comeback day.

He’d missed it. After everything he’d gone through to guarantee his presence on that stage, after lying to his friends and putting his body through hell and praying to God that he would just be able to make it, he’d fallen at the final hurdle.

He’d failed, and he might have destroyed his body along the way.

Pushing aside the tears of hopelessness that threatened to well up in his eyes and deliberately avoiding asking any questions regarding his own health for fear that he would hear something he didn’t want to, he focused his attention on the only thing that mattered.

“Who took my spot?”

Not every single member was a part of every single song, and they’d all watched each other in practice enough to know the routines. It was entirely possible for somebody to step in and take the role he’d played until the very last second.

They must’ve found someone to cover his extra part’s, too, since he’d taken over most of Taeyong’s lines and positions in the wake of their leader’s withdrawal. Whoever it was, he didn’t envy them. That was a lot of work and not a lot of time to prepare for it.

He glanced over at Jisung when the silence stretched on a little too long, frowning in bewilderment at the sudden look of sheepish discomfort on the youngest’s face as he directed his gaze anywhere but at the patient in the bed.

“Jisung?” He still refused to make eye contact. “Jisung, who took my spot?”

“Taeyong-hyung.”

Mark heard the spike in the heart monitor’s rhythm, saw out of the corner of his eye that big green number jump several digits until it was broaching 130, but he couldn’t feel the organ beating inside his chest. He couldn’t feel anything.

“What?” he choked in disbelief. “But … His back … He …”

“There wasn’t enough time to rearrange the positions,” Jisung admitted in a shameful mumble, playing with his hands in his lap so that he wouldn’t have to look up. “And we don’t have any backup dancers so … there wasn’t anyone else who could do it.”

It shouldn’t be possible for somebody to hate themselves this much, but that was exactly how Mark felt as he lay there in stunned silence, gaping at Jisung in horror.

Taeyong should’ve had a rest. He should’ve been able to take the time to heal but instead, because of Mark, he’d lost that chance. He could worsen his injury, he could maybe even get another one and he would definitely be in a lot of pain.

If Mark hadn’t been so weak. If Mark had just been able to hold on for a little longer. Or maybe if Mark wasn’t so egotistical and had just dropped out of the comeback when he’d known he was sick, they would’ve had time to rejig the formations and Taeyong would never have had to go on at all.

“Were you ever going to tell us?” Jisung suddenly spouted, finally raising his gaze to lock with his hyung’s. “About the muscle disease? The organ damage? The very real risk that you could die?”

Mark opened his mouth, but he didn’t know what to say. Was he ever planning on telling them? He hadn’t thought that far ahead. All he’d concentrated on was getting through the rehearsals and the performances and then seeking treatment once it was over.

“You could’ve died,” Jisung repeated, and there was real betrayal behind his eyes. Anger he’d never shown before. “You could’ve collapsed on stage. You could’ve hurt yourself so badly that your career would be over. Did you ever think about that, hyung? That maybe, if you just missed out on this one comeback so that you could get better, you wouldn’t have to lose your job?”

Mark gulped.

“I … I lost my job?”

He couldn’t have. They wouldn’t fire him just for being ill, right? Or for lying? Right? Or would they? Did they deem him a threat to himself? Did they think he was too much trouble? Did they not want to pay for his medical bills? Were they going to blame all of this on him because he’d been too stupid to see just how serious things were?

“No,” Jisung grunted, and Mark breathed a very long sigh of relief as the heart monitor’s beep began to slow back down. “But you’re out of promotions for this comeback and probably the next one, too. And the award shows.”

When had it all gone so wrong?

If he’d just got the treatment when he’d had the chance, he might not have had to miss so much. He wouldn’t have had to be in so much pain. Taeyong wouldn’t have had to dance when he wasn’t ready. None of the others would’ve had to flounder about trying to cover his spot. Sungchan, Jaemin, Doyoung, Donghyuck …

Donghyuck …

Oh. _Oh._ He remembered now. The bathroom, Donghyuck’s panicked face, his own terror when he realised that he couldn’t move his arms or his legs, the feeling of Donghyuck gasping for breath beneath him as he was carried to safety. The world fading to black.

Had everyone seen?

The humiliation was almost worse than the thought of having to sit on the side lines and watch his friends perform without him there beside them.

Letting out another groan, he reached up to run his fingers through his hair, and something crinkled against his chest. Something hard and plastic dug into his skin and he frowned, craning his neck to try and see what it was.

The positioning was awkward. It seemed to have been inserted into his ribcage just beneath his left collar bone. He caught sight of white gauze and something blue and a tube that was red.

He went to touch it, to try and figure out what the hell it was and why it was inside him and apparently taking his blood, but Jisung grabbed his wrist.

“Leave it alone,” he ordered, but the harshness of his tone faltered when Mark looked up at him with fear and confusion and an intense vulnerability. “It’s your dialysis port.”

What? No. Hang on. Wait. Surely not. It couldn’t … Not yet anyway. Maybe soon but … but not yet. He couldn’t have –

“The doctors said they’re hoping to be able to reverse the kidney damage,” Jisung told him as he folded his fingers around Mark’s palm and squeezed reassuringly.

Mark’s vision was blurry. His eyes were wet, his head was spinning. His mind was foggy. He couldn’t comprehend what he was hearing. He didn’t know how to wrap his head around the fact that, despite how many times his body had displayed the warning signs, he’d ignored them until he’d done exactly what his doctor had told him he’d do.

“But you’re going to have to stay here for about six weeks.”

Six weeks.

Six weeks.

Six weeks?

He’d lose his fitness. He’d gain weight. He’d never be the same again. Six weeks without even being able to go to the gym and lift some weights was like handing over his resignation letter on a silver platter with a bow.

A tear rolled down his cheek as he turned his gaze back up to the ceiling and once again asked himself the question, _Where did it go so wrong?_

This was his fault. He knew that now. He wasn’t going to die and there was a chance that the dialysis could reverse the damage that the myoglobin had done to his kidneys and yet, somehow, he’d lost everything.

He’d screwed it up.

Him. Not the disease. Him. His decisions and his ego and his inflated sense of self-resilience had done this to his body and all of it – _all of it_ – could’ve been prevented if he’d just listened.

“I’m so sorry, hyung.”

So was he. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading this story. I'm not sure when my next one will be up but it shouldn't be too long. Take care and stay safe!

**Author's Note:**

> Comments and kudos really help with my confidence and motivation so, if you have a spare minute, let me know what you think! Have a great day and be sure to go check out my partner account, Survivor4Life and their new story 'Mother Of Money'!
> 
> Also, I need some help. Since NCT is growing (still), I'm kinda out of story ideas so if you have any prompts or thoughts on what I can write for Sungchan and Shotaro, I'm all ears.


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